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Social Justice Ireland has more than 25 years experience in producing comprehensive, budget proposals and budget analysis. All of this material and other budget resources are available in this section.

Ireland is under-investing in key areas such as education, social housing and rural broadband. In order to deliver sustainable and inclusive growth public investment must be given priority in Budget 2018 and beyond. Most people want to see reductions in healthcare waiting lists, increases in social housing provision and reliable high-speed broadband across rural Ireland. To achieve this means there should be no net tax-cuts in Budget 2018.

Each year, on the day after the annual Budget is announced, Social Justice Ireland produces an analysis and critique of that Budget. Included in that document is an assessment of the direct distributive impact of the measures announced by Government. These principally capture changes to income taxes, welfare payments and other universal payments/entitlements. This document reproduces the most recent analysis, following Budget 2017, and also provides more details on the approach taken by Social Justice Ireland to generate these results.

Budget 2017 yet again ignores the working poor. Although it contained a number of welcome initiatives, the working poor gain the least. The choices Government made in cutting the Universal Social Charge and income tax are unfair and provide larger gains to those on higher incomes compared to those on lower incomes.

One hundred years after the 1916 Rising Ireland faces major choices that will shape its future for the decades ahead. The dominant economic approaches and policies which have been favoured in recent decades in Ireland, the EU and beyond have failed to recognise the interdependent relationships between a vibrant economy, social cohesion, good governance and sustainability that must characterise any society if it is to thrive in the long run. Yet recognition of this interdependency is critically important if we are to fulfil our obligations to future generations of Irish people and to the planet on which we depend for our existence.

Government should spend €1bn fiscal space on infrastructure to improve productivity and competitiveness in Budget 2017. This would be a far better use of resources than giving tax cuts as incentives to attract ‘Brexit refugees’ from the City of London to Dublin. Investment is crucial to addressing Ireland’s infrastructure deficits and to delivering a vibrant, productive, competitive and sustainable economy and a just society. Investment is the cornerstone of our policy briefing Budget Choices 2017.

Government could substantially increase the resources available to finance social housing by invoking the structural reform clause contained in the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact.This clause allows Government’s to cater for the short-term costs of implementing structural reforms that will have long-term positive budgetary effects.

An adequate investment programme focused on social housing and broadband delivery must be one of the key initiatives in Budget 2017. Budget 2017 should introduce substantially increased investment to begin delivering sufficient social housing units to eliminate the waiting list and to frontload the rollout of the fibre infrastructure for broadband to every household and business in the State.